By Michael Jacklin
The BYU men”s track and field team travels to Boise, Idaho again this weekend for the Bodybuilding.com Invitational.
The Cougars traveled to Boise two weeks ago for the Bandanna Invitational. Several athletes turned in exceptional performances at the first meet in Boise. Five Cougars finished first in their events and many others finished between second and sixth.
Sophomore Kip Kangogo led the Cougar runners last time in Boise with his first-place finish in the mile. The Cougars took the top four places in the mile at the meet.
“Kip”s time of 4:09 was a very good time indoors,” coach Mark Robison said, “especially on the short 200-meter track in Boise.”
The distance runners also showed an extremely strong performance in the 800-meter race by taking the top six places overall. Sophomore Scott Adams won the 800-meter race last time the Cougars were in Boise.
Many of the Cougar distance runners will not compete this week because they are preparing for the Mountain States Invitational next week.
The first meet in Boise was not smooth sailing for the Cougars according to Robison. In the sprinting events several timing errors cost the athletes. The electronic timing system did not work, so the meet organizers had to use hand-held timers. The hand-held times are not as accurate as the electronic timers.
“They had some problems with their timing system,” Robison said. “Hand times are horrible and there is no way to compare them to anything else. I hope they have the problem corrected for this meet.”
This week will be the first time the pole vaulters compete in Boise. The pole vaulters were at the Pole Vaulters Summit in Reno, Nev. while the rest of the team competed at the Bandanna Invitational.
Senior Mark Barry leads the Cougar vaulters so far this season. He cleared the 17-foot mark in Reno and looks to improve on that height this week. Three other Cougars, senior Jeremy Kemp, junior Eric Rasmussen and senior Trent Powell, approached the 17-foot mark last week.
At the Olympic Oval in Kearns last week the Cougars had 12 first-place finishes. Nearly every Cougar athlete that competed recorded a personal best according to Robison.
“I couldn”t have been more pleased with our athletes last week,” Robison said.
Also competing this week at the BodyBuilder.com Invitational will be Boise State University, the University of Oregon, Arizona State University, Cal State Los Angeles and UTEP.
“My guess is that our times won”t improve this week in Boise,” Robison said. “That does not mean that we didn”t improve, just that last week we ran at a far superior facility.”
